Trump Rallies Florida for Final Push

PENSACOLA, Florida — Republican Donald Trump over the past couple of months has delivered a series of carefully crafted speeches that have burnished his policy gravitas.

This speech was different.

“All the people who have rigged the system … are trying to stop our change campaign because they know their gravy train has reached its last stop.”

Trump landed in this military town Friday — fresh from his appearance at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. — to preside over an old-fashioned pep rally, urging an arena packed with supporters to give him the votes necessary to carry the ultimate swing state.

“Change is coming,” he said, noting that thousands of people could not get into the filled Pensacola Bay Center. “All the people who have rigged the system … are trying to stop our change campaign because they know that their gravy train has reached its last stop.”

Trump pushed back hard against a narrative over which his critics have obsessed — his supposed soft spot for Russia’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin. Trump told the crowd at the Pensacola Bay Center he does not know Putin but that flattery would get him nowhere.

“If we don’t get great deals for our country, nothing matters to me,” said Trump.

Related: Rising Trump Boosts GOP in Legislative Contests

Speaking of getting deals, Trump said, his project of rebuilding the U.S. military would make it easier to get Russia to back down from aggression, such as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine.

“Remember, Russia went into Crimea on President Obama’s watch,” he said. “Unlike Obama and Hillary Clinton, we will negotiate with Russia from a position of strength … Putin laughs, believe me. Putin laughs at our leaders.”

Trump’s promise to beef up the armed forces drew loud cheers in a town with a large naval air base. The decibel level also rose — along with chants of “USA! USA!” — during some tough talk toward Iran.

[lz_graphiq id=gtVuIcknQyh]

If that country’s “little boats” swarm U.S. warships under his watch, said Trump, “They will be shot out of the water.”

Trump’s appearance in Pensacola in many ways was reminiscent of a trip to the Gulf Coast he made a little more than a year ago. He used some of the same lines in Pensacola that he used then in Mobile, Alabama:

• He promised to be the “greatest jobs president God ever created.”
• He promised to build a border wall and assured listeners that Mexico would pay for it.
• He promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and rip up the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• On that sweltering August evening in 2015, Trump recited polls showing him at the top of the field. He hasn’t done that much lately, but with improving results, he highlighted recent numbers from Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Trump rally without leftist protesters trying to disrupt it. Security quickly escorted them out.

One key difference between Friday and August 2015 was the target of his patented barbs. During the primaries, he aimed criticisms at his GOP opponents, particularly Jeb Bush. On Friday, it was Hillary Clinton. He hammered his Democratic opponent on her ethics, judgment, and record.

“Hillary Clinton — and you can see this from those emails — is a very dishonest candidate of the past,” he said. “Ours is the campaign of the future.”

Trump said Clinton campaigned for the Senate on the promise of bringing jobs to upstate New York. She failed, he said.

[lz_related_box id=”203338″]

“She’s all talk,” he said. “She’s no action. She wouldn’t know a job if it stared her in the face.”

Trump paid special attention to flipping what Clinton touts as one of her greatest accomplishments — her tenure as America’s top diplomat during Obama’s first term. Trump ran through a litany of how the world has gotten worse during the Obama-Clinton years. That includes a destabilized Libya, a Syria engulfed in civil war, a North Korean regime edging ever closer to nuclear warheads that can reach the U.S. mainland, and an Iran emboldened by its nuclear deal with the United States that grants it access to tens of billions of dollars.

Trump accused Clinton of handing Iraq to Iran and said the Islamic State terrorist group was able to rise because of Clinton’s incompetence. He noted that Clinton complained to reporters earlier Friday about many of the international challenges facing America.

“The problem is she’s caused most of these problems,” said Trump. “She’s been there for 35 years. It’s time for change.”

Trump said Clinton is too eager to commit American soldiers to war — “trigger-happy,” in his words — and worse. “Personally, I think she’s an unstable person,” he said.

All of his words will mean little, of course, if Trump doesn’t win in November. And it is difficult to envision how he could do that without Florida. He made it clear he is not engaging in a vanity run.

“If we don’t make it, it’s the greatest waste of time, energy, and money that I could ever think of,” he said. “But we’re going to make it.”